Louis Papageorge photographs

The Louis Papageorge photographs consist of ten photographs, 16 enlarged photographs, and eight negatives taken by Papageorge depicting victims of the "Abtnaundorf massacre" at the Leipzig-Thekla subcamp of Buchenwald in April 1945; two street scenes in Hof, Germany, including a group of captured German troops being escorted past the office where Papageorge was stationed in May 1945; and two buildings in Leipzig identified as the city hall and justice building. Leipzig-Thekla was a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp established in 1943 to supply labor for the German war effort. As American troops advanced into Germany, the commandant of Leipzig-Thekla began evacuating the camp in April 1945. The approximately 300 prisoners who were too ill or weak to be transported were sealed into barracks number 5, and the SS guards set the barracks on fire. Those who escaped were shot, electrocuted on the electrified fences, or caught and killed by a Hitler Youth Squad. The 69th Infantry Division uncovered the camp on April 19 and immediately began providing for the fewer than 100 survivors. US Army Signal Corps photographers arrived at the site soon after to document the atrocities, which were referred to as the "Abtnaundorf massacre." Two photographs are mis-labeled "Camp Schoenfeld Tetlier-Leipzig," confusing the Leipzig-Thekla camp with the nearby Leipzig-Schönefeld (HASAG) slave labor camps. Louis Papageorge (1917-1978) was born in Washington, DC, to Peter and Elizabeth Papageorge. He served in the US Army during World War II.